5.26.22
My life is a wild ride. I run into some amazing people now and I am so blessed by them. But I also run into some weirdos ha. Kyle can’t get over how I find myself in these situations.
6.2.2022
Ya know, “back in the day” of my fresh grief I used to feed my kids breakfast and then plop right down on a chair and one of my end tables and just sit there with my coffee and type my grief out, sit in my grief, humor a kid with a random book they brought me until I lost interest and then dove back into my blog. I look back at that time and ask myself how I thought I was surviving as a mother then…in a couple months I’ll probably ask myself the same thing about now.
6.5.2022
I struggle with the thought of healing today. Am I failing at healing? And now my children are going to always have this broken state of who I once was? Am I failing at getting better? Am I failing at growing and improving and trying to be a healed version of myself for my children? Or Am I forever just going to be broken as a parent, as a mom, as a wife, as a friend? Some days I really feel like I’m not getting better, I'm actually getting worse.
6.7.2022
Yesterday I had my weekly Tuesday night school of ministry class at my church. As I made my 15 minute drive, the burn out of my daily schedule set in. We are so insanely swamped with doctor’s appointments, pre-k end of school year activities + registration, therapy. The kids alone have me needing a sitter multiple times a week in order to get them to their doctor’s apps. Whyyyyy so many??? My 3 youngest are the most medically “needy” because of their prematurity (30, 32, 29 weeks) and extremely heavy exposure to drugs in utero. The prolonged effects on their health is tough. They keep me up many nights.
As I pulled into church, venting to Kyle on the phone that there simply isn’t enough of me to continue getting sitters and bringing kids to doctors, ultrasounds, surgery consults etc., I entered into my class feeling distant. I always look forward to learning at church. That’s why I joined the class. As the first topic ended and we moved into small groups for discussion over the chapters we read, God had reminded me that He had wanted me to sit at the same table as this elderly man the week prior but I didn’t listen. I sit at the end corner table with the man and his wife while the remaining seats fill with 3 other men varying in age. One guy to my left was tattooed up and very nice. We all dive into reading our prompts to discuss as a table and a majority of us find prompt #2 the most relatable. When relationships break down or you are faced with losing a loved one, facing rejection, how do you choose to love our father in it? (summarized up). The older man and his wife spoke up first and they began right away with their experience in losing their child and how they each clung onto God individually and together. “Ok God, I get why you wanted me to sit by him.” They went on about their own journeys in choosing the Lord through their questioning and anger. It is a mix of emotions hearing from other parents of child loss who are 30 years out (like they were) yet still are so moved by their loss. But also so strong and well composed in expressing their emotions. The man sitting next to me spoke up next. “I, too, have actually lost a child…” and he dove into his own experience on how he relates to the chosen prompt. ‘I’m gunna throw up.’ I thought to myself as the weight fell on my chest of how divine my meeting at this table was. ‘Actually, no, I want to run to the bathroom and cry.’ I didn’t want to cry today. I didn’t want to cry at this table with people I had only just met. I didn’t want to cry in front of my peers as we still had another hour of class to go. I used my tshirt as a tissue to wipe my tears as the heaviness of their losses being shared sat on top of my own. All of their journeys were so beautifully relayed to the table and expressed in a manner that you could tell there was now peace over their hearts. “How long ago did you lose your daughter?” I asked the guy next to me. “14 years”, his response. I took a deep breath. It was my turn to drop the bomb of my own loss but I knew my ability to express how I was doing in my faith would sound different. “Well, uh.. I lost a child too. I’m only 8 months out though and I am struggling.” I was shocked to hear myself confessing to a table of strangers that I was struggling. I didn’t see myself as struggling but as the tears came down at the confession of my true emotional state, I realized how much I truly was. The aftermath of losing Alba…the nuclear bomb that hit my life so unexpectedly and so brutally…so cruelly… has really just changed everything in my life. And while I can think I am doing well most days, I am not who I was before..nor will I ever be…could I ever be… Both the husband + wife and the guy next to me poured encouragement and love into me. But in the end there is always an understanding that nothing helps. Only God can bless up with the supernatural peace to endure and that was actually one thing we all agreed on.--> We have no idea how parents of child loss survive it without God. Because just surviving, just waking up and breathing is hard. Everything is hard.
6.8.2022
Tomorrow is my dad’s birthday. Nothing to write home about. You guys know he isn’t in my life and hasn’t been since I was 17. I lost track of what I’ve shared here already so forgive me if I repeat myself in my stories. I gotta remind myself this blog is more for my healing than anything else.
The day after Alba was born, as I laid in a bed and grieved, I received a text from a phone number that I’ve had memorized since I was 6. I used to dial that phone number every 30 minutes on the minute, making sure my dad was still coming to pick us up for the weekend, for a dinner, for a daddy/daughter dance.. He would stop answering and it always became a toss up on if he would show up or not. I think after healing from the father wounds of my dad, I am now able to see my dad without the blinders on. “I heard about my granddaughter Alba. I’m so sorry and I will be praying for you. Even if you don’t know the Father’s prayer, don’t worry, because I will make sure to pray it for you and Alba.” -Oy. While I immediately recognized the narcissistic approach, I was so broken at this time that I simply replied, “thanks dad.” It was the day after saying goodbye to Alba that he text me again. He asked if I could send him a photo of his granddaughter so that he could cherish and remember her….I replied “I’m sorry but we’re not sharing her photo with anyone.” And then it was silence from my dad again. I’m more relieved than anything that it was clean cut.
6.14.22
Some stuff you can’t always blame on grief. Some fights with Kyle I find myself wanting to just blame it on grief. Blame it on being delusional and devastated over the state of my life so I was extra mean and short or he was extra harsh and cut throat. But not tonight. Tonight’s fight rings deep into the inner core of our marriage and whether or not the actual topic of the fight was worth the havoc it brought (it wasn’t), the wounds it still caused are painful. But why extra painful? Is it grief or is it our actual marriage that needs repairing at this point? Losing a child can do that to a marriage I’ve learned. It blurs the lines between questioning whether or not it’s our happiness together or sorrow together that is being impacted. Our sorrowness together ripple effects into our happiness together, which then convinces us that our happiness together is at stake. When really happiness wasn’t ever impacted, it’s just getting beat up by our sorrow. Therapy is tomorrow, I guess we’ll see. When does enough time pass that I should acknowledge that grief isn’t the factor but who we both are together in this new life is? It’s been 9 months. So I guess it’s still fresh. Very fresh when I remind myself of that. When does losing Alba stop becoming a crucial point on whether Kyle and I will make it in this marriage or not. I’m still aware of the statistics of marriages after child loss. But in this hurt it’s hard to battle against being another number. Being another point for the divorce team. Like I said before, every emotion is emphasized with grief. My anger before Alba in usual situations would be a 4 but is now a 7. My usual sadness or pain in situations would be a 6 but is now a 8. My usual reasons to cry and throw in the towel would be a lot deeper but are now puddles in comparison with grief involved. I’m tired. All that to say, I'm tired. I’m tired of grief being in the room. Being in my emotions. My thoughts. I want Alba here and how do I cope with the fact that I’m so happy I have Zay, he is my son, I could never envision anything different….but I don’t have Alba. Tonight I’m mad at Kyle and now I'm mad I ended up crying over Alba instead. I should have just been mad at Kyle and called it a night but now grief has shoved its way in. I hope other grieving women feel this way at some point, but how do you ever ask that of someone grieving if they have?
6.16.22
Grief accentuates every sad/hard emotion and dulls every happy one.
6.17.22
“Rain came and wind blew but my house was built on you.”
I sit here and think of the best way to describe my grief and the best way I’ve always found is to describe it with the word debilitating. When I hear the word debilitating I think of a house being completely torn down by a tornado or hurricane winds. I imagine a home, a building, a castle even just being completely ripped apart and depleted without a single standing pillar left. That’s how I think of my life after losing Alba. The life I had built, the innocence I once had, the joy I had once felt was completely tore down with nothing left to show BUT the foundation that my house was built on. The foundation that my love, my joy, that my LIFE was built on was firm and stood still. It stood strong and didn’t waver. Under the pile that used to be my life was a rock solid foundation to rebuild on, and that foundation was Jesus. I had built my entire life upon faith in Him, my house that symbolizes my entire life was beautiful. It was my dream home (life). But losing my daughter was as if the biggest tornado and the biggest hurricane came through and left nothing of my house except for that rock solid foundation underneath. Without Christ being underneath the heap of my life, I would have nothing to build back on. I would not have my peace that I can’t understand nor my hope in knowing that while everything is gone, I am able to build new on top of the same foundation that didn’t rattle once when my entire house was destroyed…was debilitated.